


The Musings of a Master

by WritingDump



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends: Jedi Apprentice Series - Jude Watson & Dave Wolverton
Genre: Conversations, Gen, No Plot/Plotless
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-04
Updated: 2018-09-04
Packaged: 2019-07-06 19:41:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,888
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15892800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WritingDump/pseuds/WritingDump
Summary: After Xanatos' fall, Yoda and Qui-Gon have a talk over tea.





	The Musings of a Master

Tea was, in some cultures, a sacred thing. An intricate dance, its steps choreographed with the specific intent of testing one's agility and grace. The highly intriguing steps demanded utmost concentration, and the fortitude to perform each stanza to utmost perfection. Yet above it all, it tested one's patience to yield and to obey, to kneel prostrate to a ritual so ancient, its origins were no longer remembered, only that once, each sequence served a greater purpose than as a dance to prepare a hot beverage for esteemed guests. Then, at the end of the performance, once one had endured the mindlessly droll sequence times over enough, one would find, in its core, that the test was the lesson, and those with the gift of patience emerged patient evermore.

At thirty-six standard, Qui-Gon was an adroit practitioner of the intricate artform, a lone dancer upon the front stage executing the rhythmic motions with the agile grace of a warrior while shadows frolicked behind a screen backstage, building up to the tempo of the sonata. Yet perhaps, on this particular august presentation, it would be more accurate to describe him the other way around and call him a warrior first. And therein lies his folly. Rather than billowing grace, formless and without weight, he executed each step with surgical precision, wielding the delicate utensils like a saber sword, hacking and cutting through the screens that occluded the play going on backstage with every slash and parry, impatiently seeking to expose the actors behind the frolicking shadows only to find rotting corpses hanging on strings played by stage mummers. He stumbled, and paid the price of his folly, a splash of scalding liquid upon the vulnerable skin of his hand. He hissed in pain, and the performance came to a screeching halt, the dancer no longer the perfect impersonation of his on stage persona, but the man himself.

“Much impatience I sense in you, Qui-Gon,” admonished Yoda, tapping the lower end of his gimer stick once upon the cold stone floor of his room, a gavel in court calling for order. “Unbecoming this is. A youngling you are not, so why like one act you do?”

The admonishment stung, but spent and wearied from the dance, he had not the presence of mind to argue. “I apologise for my transgressions.” The words rang hollow, an empty apology without the corresponding emotions of penitance, yet beneath that, an overwhelming sense of guilt. Not for the error the other perceived, but the error he committed.

Yoda harrumphed, striking his stick again, commanding respect not only as the Grand Master of the Order, but as his grandmaster, the most senior member of their lineage.

“Much defiance I sense in you, padawan.”

A harsh rebuke, a reminder that they were all but learners in the Force. Qui-Gon picked up the ladle and scooped hot water unceremoniously into the teapot, abandoning all pretense to be a danseur.

“With cavalier treat delicate china you should not.” It was a gentle reminder rather than a reproach. Yoda leaned on the cane, watching the tall man now as he had watched over him since he was a baby taking his first steps in the Temple's crèche. He recognised the despair that limned the hard planes of Qui-Gon's face, knew that discipline would serve no purpose upon a man drowning in despair. Succour must first be given, the man saved from the viscious depths of the whirlpool, time allowed for the water clogging his lungs to be expelled.

“It is the finest that I have,” Qui-Gon allowed. “A gift from an old friend. It was their family heirloom, passed down through the family for generations, hailed by all as the finest masterpiece out of the craftsman of Aurea.” Another poignant memory, an elderly man, alone on his deathbed, his sons long since departed from the planet to ply their own trades, seeking a life away from the perceived stifling traditions of their family business. The lineage was not dead, but it might as well have been when the younger generation refused to accept the teachings of the elder.

Yoda said nothing, only listened. And watched. Always, he watched, even if nothing else. Qui-Gon thought he much preferred his grandmaster this way, silent and watching from the sidelines than meddling in business not his own. If not for his meddling, a disciple in his own lineage would not have gone awry, led astray by pride, choosing to champion the ephemeral trappings of fame and riches over the illustrous yet humble teachings of the Force.

Tea was served, rich coils of steam rising in the air before being dissipated by the unseen currents that swirled in the apparent stillness of the room. True calm existed not but in the imaginations of a child's mind, a sweet lie that would not resist the test of time. The hot beverage filled the white interior of the porcelain cups, giving the monotone a saturated green hue, a sure sign of over-steeping. He was distracted, losing the focus he was once famous throughout the Temple for. A focus he might never regain. The pain of loss echoed in the void gnawed out by grief in his chest.

The grandmaster inhaled the aroma swimming in the cresting waves of the steam and sampled the bitter tea. His face was a mask of serenity, revealing nothing. Qui-Gon partook in his own drink, allowing the sharp taste to match that of the vibroblade twisting in his heart. The mistake was his, and two had to suffer for it. He deserved no respite from the consequences of his actions.

“Your fault, this is not. Blame yourself, you should not,” said Yoda.

“With all due respect, I beg to differ, grandmaster. Just as the apprentice cannot fully deny the contributions of his master to his successes, the master cannot completely denounce his participation in the failings of his apprentice.”

“The boy's own the decision was. Your padawan, guided him as best you could you did. If cracked a mortar be, not even the finest craftsman could a masterpiece fashion it to be. Revealed in time, the crack will; shatter under pressure, the stone will. Better the painful truth now. Time heal all wounds will.”

Qui-Gon's tenuous patience snapped. “Is that why you did it? Apply chisel to a crack just to see the stone shatter? What sort of perverse pleasure do you take from this, grandmaster?” he snarled. A hurt beast, when cornered, lashed out with more ferocity.

The diminutive green master shook his head sagely. “Create the crack, the chisel did not, but to expose the flaw for what it is.”

“And yet a careful mason would know to fashion a statue that avoided the crack entirely, creating an art of another sort than put the entire piece to waste,” Qui-Gon refuted. Even now, he could remember standing before the Jedi High Council as clearly as if it was yesterday, Xanatos at his side, padawan braid so long it was touching the bottom of his sternum. Yoda had seen the unrest in Xanatos, saw how he was tethered on the precipice of falling, and had deliberately gave him the tip that would see him pushed over the edge rather than the pull that would keep him away from it.

“Had I not pushed, crumble under his feet, the precipice would still,” said Yoda, a subtle reminder to Qui-Gon that he was allowing his emotions and thoughts to leak around his once inpenetrable, now compromised mental shielding.

“Would it?”

The bowls were empty now, dregs of tea leaves arranged artfully upon the base. What fortune would a soothsayer looking upon this pattern predict for him? Qui-Gon tipped the teapot and refilled Yoda's bowl, stirring up the tea leaves once more. If only the course of fate was as easily altered. He repeated the stilted dance over his own, only to find the pot was emptied. There was no changing his fate. A drop hanging from the spout splattered to the bottom of the bowl, disrupting the dregs, defiant till the end.

Hatred was unbecoming of a Jedi, yet it would be a lie to say that Qui-Gon did not resent Yoda's actions, hated that in the eyes of the wizened Jedi, they were all naught but a series of dominos to be stacked and toppled at will. Surely they were worth more than this? Once, he had foolishly allowed himself to believe that Yoda cared fithe younglings he taught as deeply as Qui-Gon did. Now, he saw that emotional detachment had led to apathy. A general upon a battlefield mobilising his troops as nothing more than mere figures, or worse, a player at a game of dejarik, sacrificing pieces at whim to win the game.

But ultimately, it was him who have failed his padawan. Him, who had foolishly stepped into the game, arrogance leading him to believe that his presence at his padawan's side would suffice when he should have humbled himself into a retreat from a game too big for himself.

_Guard your heart, my young padawan._

It was his fatal flaw, this foolish willingness to give his trust to everyone he came across, allowing all and sundry to go trampling over his open heart, leaving nothing but a trail of bloody footprints in their wake. His own master had seen it, warned him against it, but he had turned a deaf ear to the well-intentioned advice. Not anymore.

“Reconsider your decision you will,” insisted Yoda, side stepping the question. “In need of guidance many a youngling are.”

Once, Qui-Gon would have obeyed the Grand Master, taking his counsel as wisdom. Not anymore.

Qui-Gon opened the lid of the pot and presented it to the grandmaster. Within the smooth surface of the glazed interior, the pot sported a long vertical crack running from bottom to top.

“Cracked, yet this pot remained an heirloom, a prized possession cherished for centuries. Should I bring a chisel to it?” He looked upon Yoda's face. He did not expect the grandmaster to look chagrined and was not disappointed. “Betrayal, is what this is, even if you do not and probably will never not see it that way. You warned me that Xanatos has too much darkness in him, yet I refused to listen, so to prove your point, your _wisdom_ , you set him up for failure. This, I cannot do, master. I will be your pawn. Use me as you will, but I cannot stand by and allow you or the Council to play another under my care like a pawn to be traded for victory.”

“A pawn, are you? Fast to determine your own value, you are.”

Qui-Gon replaced the lid. “You forget, grandmaster, that the rest of us live very short lives. If we do not run as fast as our legs will take us, we will never reach anywhere in time.” He stood and bowed. “With your leave.” A dismissal.

The lone audience of the aborted performance clambered down his seat and tottered away, disappointed by the outcome. He would try again next year, as he did last, and try again until Qui-Gon finally relented. This, Qui-Gon knew. Just as he knew the next person to be his padawan would yet again be a pawn in Yoda's grand scheme.

**Author's Note:**

> Ugh. I _love_ Master Yoda, but really, there's a whole shit ton of things that I'm not happy about with him. Consider in canon the way he sends Anakin off alone to protect Padme when he _knows_ that Anakin has a boyhood crush on her, or how he sends him to spy on Palpatine when he _knows_ Palpatine is bad influence on Anakin and that Anakin considers Palpatine his friend. I mean, common sense would tell you to send Anakin running off in the opposite direction, as far away from these two people as possible. Imagine being a police inspector and sending a junior officer you _know_ is a recovering drug addict with high risk of relapse on some underground mission to expose a drug den. Huh. What the kriff, inspector? That's exactly what you do when you want to lose one extra hand from the team. I mean, what's wrong with sending him to do regular patrol duty? If he runs across drug dealers in some back alley and succumbs, well then that's too bad but I did all I can to minimise the risks. If he falls even after all that, the blame is solely on him, not me. 
> 
> This does not mean I think a person with a character weakness should be coddled and protected forever. More like... Don't force someone into temptations you know he can't handle all at once? Take it slowly, one step at a time. If you throw algebra at a pre-schooler, I don't know why you thought he would do anything but fail spectacularly.
> 
> Likewise with Xanatos. Instead of throwing him back to Telos, Yoda could have sent him running all over the galaxy dealing other mundane things until he eventually learns to let go of his greed (and don't tell me it's not possible. What do you think character redemption is all about?) but no~ He _had_ to send him straight into the lion's den. It's almost as if Yoda's eager to prove to Qui-Gon that he has the right judge of character and that Xanatos will fall; so when Xanatos didn't fall, he did everything he can to make Xanatos fall just to prove himself right. Ugh. Such arrogance. x.x


End file.
